Meanings
comparative more forswollen · superlative most forswollen
- obsoleteExcessively swollen; (figuratively) puffed up with pride; boastful; enraged.
mid-1400s, John Conlee (ed.), Prose Merlin, Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1998, “The Tournament at Logres; King Lot and his Sons; and Morgan and Gyomar,” p. 285, line 315, “Ha, boyes!”" quod the kynge, “thow art fell and forswollen. […] ”
2 more examples
Who tother day wyth arrowes kéene, haue nayled to the ground, The serpent Python so forswolne, whose filthie wombe did hide So many acres of the grounde in which he did abide.
1567, Arthur Golding, transl., The XV Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, entytuled Metamorphosis, Book 1Whilst hee that earst against the Sunne did beake His foreswolne poysonous bulke, doth vanquishd lie In his owne filth:
1595, Barnabe Barnes, Sonnet 57 in A Divine Centurie of Spirituall Sonnets, London, John Windet, […] then I wreake My wrath on Sathan, and vpon his head Mee thinkes (like Michaell or Saint George) I treade
Origin
- Middle Englishforswollen
- Englishforswollen
From Middle English forswollen, for-swollen, forswellen, equivalent to for- + swollen.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
forswollen. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/forswollen
“forswollen.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/forswollen. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “forswollen,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/forswollen.
Source: forswollen on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.